Yours, for Probably Always
The other letters volume, narrower in range and differently edited.
Read our take
Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn
Sixty years of letters, edited by her biographer Caroline Moorehead. Faster, funnier and ruder than the prose Gellhorn published.
- 2006
- 544
About Martha Gellhorn
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeCaroline Moorehead gathered the correspondence from ten repositories across three countries and edited it into a single volume, published by Henry Holt in 2006. The letters run from Gellhorn's arrival in Paris at twenty-two through the wars, the books, the friendships and the marriage to Hemingway. Moorehead had already written the biography and had access Gellhorn's executors granted to no one else, and the connective narrative here comes from that work.
The story, in more detail
Moorehead drew the letters from ten repositories across three countries and six American states, which is a fair measure of how scattered a correspondence becomes when the writer moves every few years for sixty of them. The volume opens with Gellhorn newly arrived in Paris at twenty-two and closes at the end of a life spent largely in other people's wars. Between those points are the friendships, the quarrels, the work, the money, and the marriage to Hemingway, which she conducted partly by post and afterwards refused to discuss in public.
The letters are the argument for reading her at all. The published prose is controlled; the correspondence is fast, profane, funny and frequently unfair, and the two voices are recognisably the same person working at different pressures. What a reader should keep in view is that this is a selection made by her biographer, who had access no one else was given and a book of her own to support. Moorehead is the best-informed reader the material has ever had and she is not a neutral one.
Why we recommend it
Her private register
The letters are funnier and ruder than the published prose, and the voice is recognisably the same one.
The Hemingway years from her side
Most accounts of that marriage descend from his circle. This is the counterweight.
Gathered from ten archives
The editorial work behind the book is the reason the correspondence exists in readable form at all.
What this book explores
Timeline
1930s
The correspondence opens with Gellhorn newly arrived in Paris at twenty-two — the start of sixty years of letters through the wars, the books, and the marriage to Hemingway.
2006
Caroline Moorehead, Gellhorn's biographer, gathers the letters from ten repositories across three countries, and Henry Holt publishes the selection; a Chatto & Windus edition follows in the UK.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Henry Holt and Company
- 2006
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn: frequently asked questions
Who edited the Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn?
Caroline Moorehead, Gellhorn's biographer, who gathered the correspondence from ten repositories across three countries. It was published by Henry Holt in 2006.
What do the letters cover?
Gellhorn's life from her arrival in Paris at twenty-two through the wars, the books, the friendships, and the marriage to Ernest Hemingway.
Who was Martha Gellhorn?
A pioneering American war correspondent and novelist, one of the great reporters of the century, and briefly Hemingway's third wife.
Why read her letters?
For Gellhorn in her own unguarded voice across six decades — she was a formidable and very funny correspondent.
How were the letters collected?
Moorehead drew them from ten repositories across three countries and six American states — a measure of how far Gellhorn's restless life scattered them.